Sophie and Rowan in Canada

Last night we sat and spun - Rowan finished off plying his first skein (plying is spininng two strands of yarn together to make two-ply yarn), and spun another of brown undyed wool, and Sophie did her first on the electric spinning wheel with brown wool. You can get more twist in with an electric wheel, which is needed for some fine yarns, but you have more control with a manual wheel.

Today we spent the day scraping and wire-brushing paint off the front of the house again. It was a lovely sunny day, fortunately. By the time we’d finished our arms were tired but the wall was nearly done.



We asked if we could help look after the chickens today so we were shown how to get new grain, kitchen scraps and water, move the mobile run to a fresh patch of grass, and collect the eggs. They lay about three to eight eggs a day, most of which are given away as that's a lot for one household. We'll probably be doing the chickens for the rest of the week, and we looked so enthusiastic about that that we'll probably get to feed the goats tomorrow. Some of the hens have big bald patches of bright red skin, which looks a bit alarming, but apparently it's just because they moult naturally about once a year.


It's really good to be outside so much - on a sunny Autumn day like this in London we would have just looked out of the window and thought, "Looks like a nice day; wouldn't it be nice to be outside?"